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Distributed UM -> Centralised UM (Unity 4.0.3)

dschlenzig
Level 1
Level 1

Hi, we have a customer who is upgrading from Exchange 2000 to Exchange 2003. They have unified messaging and currently have 7 Unity servers each partnered with their own Exchange 2000 server at a remote site. Would I be able to use this opportunity to move away from a distributed to a centralised Unity model by upgrading the main Exchange 2000 server to Exchange 2003 and partner a new Unity server. Then upgrade the rest of the Exchange servers making sure all Exchange servers are in the same routing and administrative group and the delay over the WAN is less than 40ms.

Regards, Daniel

1 Accepted Solution

Accepted Solutions

What you have today sounds likes a sound design and I wouldn’t recommend changing it.

Since 4.0(3) we have explicitly not supported having Exchange servers, DC/GCs or DNS servers across a WAN from Unity. Basically anything Unity will need to access in real-time. This statement was added to the 4.0(3) release notes.

I know there is some conflicting information on cisco.com and I really apologize for that. I am working to get it cleared up but it has taken longer then I would like.

The flexibility of IP makes this type of deployment desirable. Without fully understanding the potential impact of packet loss, delay, down links and etc., using Exchange servers across WAN links was at one time allowed although never really encouraged. We learned the hard way that Unity just couldn’t handle distributed Exchange servers, which is why we explicitly removed support.

WAN links technically could be supported if it was something customers really needed. You can ask to have your account team submit that is called a PERS request. We (Cisco) would have to approach it as a new feature though – it wouldn’t be a wink, wink, nod, nod type thing. There is a lot of design, testing and field trial required to support Exchange across a WAN link in a way that we can feel comfortable with.

Thanks,

Keith

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4 Replies 4

lindborg
Cisco Employee
Cisco Employee

Well, that's a pretty big jump - you'll want to chat with some TMEs to take a closer look at your network and deployment plan there.

But I can say this - there is no mechanism to "merge" user/handler data from multiple Unity installations into one server (i.e. DiRT migrates all settings to another box/installation - it does not "add" it's information into an existing installation). So you'd have to build your central Untiy server basically from scratch.

Hi, I appreciate I'll have to do it from scratch. But what I'm mostly concerned about is whether or not the design is sound. Pardon my ignorance, who are TME's?

Thanks, Daniel

TMEs are smart, good looking, hard working, experienced and amazingly efficient engineers that hook up with account teams to do pre deployment planning and evaluation stuff. Account teams can engage them to help evaluate deployments just like yours. We can't say without looking at your setup in some detail if it's a good plan to centralize or not.

What you have today sounds likes a sound design and I wouldn’t recommend changing it.

Since 4.0(3) we have explicitly not supported having Exchange servers, DC/GCs or DNS servers across a WAN from Unity. Basically anything Unity will need to access in real-time. This statement was added to the 4.0(3) release notes.

I know there is some conflicting information on cisco.com and I really apologize for that. I am working to get it cleared up but it has taken longer then I would like.

The flexibility of IP makes this type of deployment desirable. Without fully understanding the potential impact of packet loss, delay, down links and etc., using Exchange servers across WAN links was at one time allowed although never really encouraged. We learned the hard way that Unity just couldn’t handle distributed Exchange servers, which is why we explicitly removed support.

WAN links technically could be supported if it was something customers really needed. You can ask to have your account team submit that is called a PERS request. We (Cisco) would have to approach it as a new feature though – it wouldn’t be a wink, wink, nod, nod type thing. There is a lot of design, testing and field trial required to support Exchange across a WAN link in a way that we can feel comfortable with.

Thanks,

Keith

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